Oct 17th

2014

“I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print”

When I started this series I knew I was going to have to write about Ansel Adams (1902-1984). People would roll their eyes and say, yes, we know Ansel. But, believing there remains a fundamental difference between being familiar with Adams’ work, and studying it, I still think there’s value in considering him a master. He is one of the giants on whose shoulders people like Edward Burtynsky, or Galen Rowell, stand (and stood). Sure, he’s been overplayed a little, like the Beatles’ Yesterday, but try to see it for what it was, and to see him for who he was, and learn something from both of those.

Jeffrey Pine, Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was a defining figure in the romantic tradition of 19th century American landscape photography. He studied piano and planned to become a concert pianist before switching paths and becoming a photographer. He worked mainly with large format cameras in the American west, and was particularly known for his high contrast photographs of Yosemite, photographs that I carefully cut from calendars and put on my walls as a teenager, beside National Geographic covers from people like Steve McCurry, and photographs from the Patagonia catalogue. That sums up my early influence tidily. And like me, Adams seemed driven by more than a desire to make an accurate recording or pretty picture, but to move people to preserve a place he loved by creating in them a sense of mystery and the sublime. Like Burtynsky who I featured last week, Adams had an agenda – his photography supporting his environmentalist and conservationist hopes. Adams believed photography could create a strong emotional response in viewers, and his resulting efforts played a huge role in American conservation efforts of his time.

“More than any other influential American of his epoch, Adams believed in both the possibility and the probability of humankind living in harmony and balance with its environment.” – William Turnage

There’s much to learn from Adams. He still did commercial work to pay bills, but kept that work separate from his personal work, a model more photographers might consider, giving them both more creative and financial freedom. He played a role in furthering the craft, developing the Zone System with Fred Archer, and introducing early ideas about visualization. And his work was unique, speaking with a strength of individual voice that’s hard to ignore. His careful compositions, strong tonal contrast, and attention to the whole process – from vision to negative to print – might shame many of us who have become sloppy in our craft. Almost any of us now working in a landscape tradition have been influenced by Adams, even indirectly, and owe to him, in part, a debt for the place photography is slowly taking in the art world.

Oct 15th

2014

Today is the first day of the 5 Day Deal, an idea I like so much I’ll be kicking myself for years for not thinking it up myself. Here’s the deal: a bunch of photographic educators -some of the best on the planet, like Gavin Gough, and Zack Arias – bundled some of their best […]

Oct 10th

2014

Here’s another Q&A from The Big Q. This time we’re talking about making the jump from full-time job to full-time photographer. If you’ve got questions you’d like answered, I’d love to help: leave them in the comments. Q: When you first made your decision to become a full time adventurer/humanitarian photographer what scared you the […]

Oct 7th

2014

Issue 9 of PHOTOGRAPH has just been released and it rocks. It’s a brand new format, making it much more readable on devices like the iPad, and completely re-designed. It’s also the first in our third year (THREE YEARS!), and with this we’re moving from a quarterly magazine to bi-monthly. 6 great issues a year. […]

Oct 5th

2014

Thjorsá River #1Iceland, 2012, copyright Edward Burtynsky “We took what we needed from the Earth and this is what we left behind. That is the informational layer of my work, but there is also a political layer and an autobiographical one.” Edward Burtynsky (1955 – present) is still very much alive and working today. One […]

About David

David duChemin is a world & humanitarian assignment photographer, best-selling author, international workshop leader, and accidental founder of Craft & Vision. When not chasing adventure and looking for beauty, David is based in Vancouver, Canada.